The Weight of Inspiration

Don’t ask me how many green lights I just drove by—instead, ask me about the sentences that appeared right in front of me—one word after the other, captions, threads, and overflowing bullet points. Someone turned on the faucet at its highest pressure.

I remember Liz’s words. She described this state of being. A certain mystical flow of inspiration that comes from being disciplined—from doing something day after day. I’ve felt it before, with my writing, [once upon a time] with weight lifting, but never in any other form.

I remember a story Liz told about her friend, the ice skater. “She just went out there and did her thing. That’s creative living.”

I do things every day, but I just call that work. Nothing else. And in times when I miss who I am when surrounded by inspiration, I feel ashamed for not writing in days. In my head, that’s the only window into creativity and inspiration.

Hmm.

“Sure, teachers are creative. They create stuff all the time,” my mind reassures me when I doubt the veracity of what I’m experiencing. As part of my job, I make stuff for teachers minute after minute: writing guidelines, creating templates, designing visuals for their lessons, writing mentor texts they can use with their students—things I give the sad label of “tasks” on my calendar.

It’s just work stuff.

Somehow, though, that “stuff,” those tasks, feel valuable. The word task makes them feel underappreciated. They provide joy and keep me hungry for more things I can create. Ah, there it is; the state Liz wrote about, the state of being I have listened to on Audible over 12 times already—the state of being that somehow showed up outside of writing, and I couldn’t recognize.

A few weeks ago, I decided to pay attention to it. I looked at my tasks and started sharing them. Someone asked why, and I said, “I just know I do a lot each day, but I don’t really see it. Now I can see it!”

But it felt like more than that. I allowed my discipline at work to morph into more and more inspiration. It’s quite dizzying, to be honest. I can’t capture ideas fast enough, my head is constantly opening new tabs, and I find myself trying to catch up and capture it all. Oftentimes showing up as poorly taken photos and a stack of Post-its inside my notebook.

Whatever, I think. Just share it.

On good days, it’s a fun state. But on days when my mind drifts far off, I fall several levels into the “well, that didn’t last…” Yesterday was the perfect case of it.

I mean, I tend to set very high expectations for myself. So, no surprise there.
The same thing happens sometime in May—the rush of writing every day for The Slice of Life Story Challenge in March comes with me into April, but then it vanishes. Or better yet, I let go of it. I allow May to feel like a failure, which is silly. I know.

After several days of bubbly inspiration, I had a Monday of letting go. But then I remember Liz’s voice, and I see these lines appear on a pretend mirror in front of me. It reads, Ana, all these things can be true:

• There’s a high in feeling inspired and creative day after day.
• That’s also not realistic. It won’t happen every.single.day.
• On days when the mystical cloud floats away from me, I can still show up and complete my tasks.
• The “stuff” is what keeps me disciplined.
• Discipline is the path the mystical cloud will follow to come back to me.
• I need to relax and just enjoy it.